By Kurt Seifried, [email protected], Copyright Kurt Seifried
Do you have files on your computer that you wouldn't want your spouse to read, or perhaps your main competitor. Chances are if you use your computer for work or general usage the answer is yes. Also what happens if you want to send a file to someone, or let them download it from you, but you only have access to a public site (like a free web hosting company). The answer is to encrypt the file, and fire it off. For Windows you have several choices, PGP, and GnuPG, as well as Guardbot for web based file transfers. If you work with files that are sensitive (such as spreadsheets containing sensitive financial data) the constant hassle of encrypting and decrypting the file (as well as the fact a decrypted copy will be stored on the filesystem, leaving a window of opportunity for an attacker) can get tedious. If this is the case you will want to use software such as EFS (available in Windows 2000), PGPdisk or BestCrypt to create an encrypted file which you can use like a drive. The advantage of this is you only authenticate once to access say the "X:" drive, and there is a lesser chance the the file will be stored in an unencrypted format on the disk (it might be placed in the swap file). This allows you to easily keep a set of files encrypted, but easily accessible to work on.
Pretty Good Privacy used to be command line driven with no GUI, and now the command line is an install time option (in other words PGP integrates itself quite well with windows and you generally won't need the command line to use it). PGP is available for free for non-commercial usage, and there are two commercial versions available from Network Associates (who also distribute the free version). Commercial PGP was historically only available in the US and Canada, however it was recently granted an export license which should help it's acceptance in other countries. The free version of PGP comes in two flavors, one with and one without patented RSA components. If you are within the US or Canada you can use the free version of PGP from here. If you are outside the US or Canada you can get the International version of PGP here, or potentially buy a commercial copy soon of either PGP Personal privacy or PGP Desktop Security (has some extra bells and whistles). Once you have downloaded the software simply double click on it to install, you will be lead through a rather normal Windows software install, however when you get to the components choice box you should uncheck anything you do not plan to use, especially support for mailers you do not have since PGP will be unable to find them, and the install will complain. Also if you do not need the VPN client, do no install it, it has a tendency to cause networking issues (small glitch like problems). The install will prompt you to either import an existing keyring (which if you are new to PGP you will not have), or create a new set of keys. I would advise using a 1024 or 2048 bit keylength for "daily" use, 4096 bit keys are slow to use and realistically if an attacker can factor a 2048 bit key in a reasonable amount of time they have probably found some flaw in PGP. On the other hand if you are storing sensitive files, or transmitting them often, and have a long time horizon in which you need to keep the data secret, a larger key is appropriate. You should send your keys to the keyserver when prompted to do so, as it will make it possible for other people to get your keys without having to go to you (so for example if I receive email from you, and I see it is PGP signed, I can retrieve your key from a keyserver and verify the signature, and in turn encrypt my reply to you).
If you want to find someone else's key either right click on the PGP tray icon and choose "PGPKeys" or go to the Windows Start menu and select "PGPKeys". Once in PGPKeys you select "Server", "Search", select a keyserver (ldap://certserver.pgp.com is a default so many people use it), and enter the email address you are searching for, it should be in the User ID of their key (since email addresses area relatively unique identifier). You will be present with a list of keys matching your criteria, simply right click on the key you wish to have, and choose "Import", and that is it. When you use this key to verify digitally signed files from the person the PGP software might complain about it being an untrusted key, by default foreign keys are untrusted unless they are signed by someone you trust (such as a friend, or yourself). To get rid of this (i.e. I and my boss exchange a lot of encrypted files), sign their key with a non exportable signature, in "PGPKeys" simple right click on the key, choose "Sign", do NOT check the box saying "Allow signature to be exported. Others may rely upon your signature", and then choose the key to sign it with, and enter your password. You should never sign a key with an exportable signature unless you have met face to face with the person, proven your ID to each other, and then signed your keys.
When signing and decrypting files you will be prompted for your password, which can be annoying, PGP can cache the password, however be careful. If you enter your password and then leave your email client running and leave the computer unattended someone could use it and send email from you that is digitally signed (thus impersonating you). If you turn on the password saving feature you should be careful to always shutdown your mail client when you leave the computer unattended. To set the cache time simply go to the PGP settings (in Outlook it is "Tools", "PGP", "Options", then the "General" tab), and simply set the cache time to an appropriate length. If you want to be safe do not cache the signing passphrase, this way you can decrypt encrypted files with your private key and not have to enter the password for your private key constantly, but you will be prompted for your password when you try to sign a file.
To encrypt or decrypt files simply right click on them in Windows (on the desktop, or in the file explorer), and choose "PGP" followed by "Encrypt", "Decrypt and Verify", or whichever option you want to use. One use of this is to sign files, this creates a file with the signature (i.e. filename.asc), copy it to a safe location, and you can use it later to check if the file was modified (say you have a spreadsheet with a lot of data and are paranoid about someone changing it).
A better long term solution is to use PGPdisk, which allows you to create an encrypted drive (actually it is a file that is mounted so you can easily access it). PGPdisk only comes with the commercial versions of PGP, which means you need to buy either PGP Personal privacy or PGP Desktop Security. During the install make sure "PGPdisk for Windows" is selected, once you reboot simply go to the Start menu, PGP, and select PGPdisk, you will be presented with "New", "Mount", "Unmount" and "Prefs". To create a new encrypted volume simply click "New", you will be prompted for a filename and location (probably your "C:" drive), this file actually contains the encrypted data, but Windows can mount it, like a floppy disk, so that you access it by simply going to the drive letter you assign (like "X:"), hit save and you will be prompted for the file size to create, and the drive letter to assign to it (such as "X:"), after this you will be prompted for the passphrase to protect it, and once this is done it will ask for some random data (since Windows doesn't have a good random number generating facility programs usually ask for random keyboard or mouse input). It then brings up the format screen (and since Windows thinks it is a harddrive it asks if you really want to do this), and once the format is complete it mounts the drive and you can use it. The one thing I don't like about PGPdisk (at least version 6.0.2), is that there is no option to automatically mount the drive at boot time (which would prompt you for the passphrase of course, but it would be nice to automate it somewhat). The Mount and Unmount buttons allow you to mount and un-mount existing encrypted files as drives, and aren't terribly interesting. The Prefs button on the other hand has some neat features, you can specify an inactivity timeout, so if you don't use the encrypted volume for say 10 minutes it un-mounts it, and you can also specify a hot key to do this (should the FBI burst in suddenly), and you can have it un-mount the volume when the computer "sleeps" (halfway powers down). I would advise using all these if you are concerned about the safety of your data, especially in an office environment.
GnuPG for Windows is planned however not yet available (well it is, but it's not terribly user friendly yet).
BestCrypt is a disk encrypting program similar to PGPdisk. It allows you to create a fake drive, say "X:" that is actually an encrypted file, mounted as a filesystem to ease access. BestCrypt has several significant advantages over PGP and EFS however, it is available for Windows and Linux, and the source code is available! This will allow you to dual boot a machine between Windows and Linux, and share an encrypted filesystem for example, something you cannot do with any other products. The other huge advantage over PGP and EFS is you can validate the source code (this is of interest for companies that plan to roll out a few thousand copies and want to make sure it does what it claims to). To add insult to injury there are several version of BestCrypt that are free, for DOS, Windows 3.x and Linux (nice of them). BestCrypt is easy to use, simply download it, double click to install, you might need to reboot (once I had to, once I did not, strange). Simply start up the BestCrypt control panel, choose the drive you want the data to reside on (probably "C:"), then choose "Container" and "New", a good filename is like "my-encrypted-stuff" (realistically an attacker will find it, and since it's encrypted this isn't a huge concern). You will be able to choose the algorithm you want, I would recommend Blowfish over DES (a 56 bit algorithm) and GOST (BestCrypt's own algorithm, which isn't as well tested as Blowfish or DES). You then choose a size, and set a passphrase to access the container, at this point the container is created and you can now mount the container (right click on the container), choose mount, a drive letter (like "X:") and the option to mount at logon (makes sense if you plan to use it often). The first time you try to mount a container it will complain that it is not formatted, you can at this point format it. One feature BestCrypt has that PGPdisk lacks is the ability to automatically mount the encrypted volume(s) when you login (and prompts your for your password of course), so you don't have to keep mounting them manually each time you reboot. Like PGPdisk BestCrypt has options to specify an inactivity timeout, simple go to the BestCrypt control panel, "Options" and then "Timeout".
Scramdisk is a free, OpenSource disk encryption program for Windows, written by an anonymous programmer (although (s)he cklaims to be from Britain). The source code is available online, as well as binary packages. Scramdisk supports a variety of algorithms, 3DES, Blowfish and IDEA notably. The install is rather simple, uncompress the program and the VXD (virtual device driver that allows you to mount a file as a filesystem, just as PGP and BestCrypt do), copy the VXD to the appropriate location (double click the install and it will error out the first time, and tell you where to put the VXD). Then run the install and reboot. The obvious advantage of this product is that it is completely free, and OpenSource, so if you have the resources you can ensure it meets your safety requirements.
It would appear that Microsoft is starting to take security seriously in Windows 2000. Unfortunately with their past track record and general implementation strategies the new Encrypting File System (EFS) appears to have some severe limitations and flaws. Because Microsoft is an American company they come under US cryptographic export law, meaning the US / Canadian version of EFS uses strong crypto, but the foreign versions use weak crypto (and I haven't heard of MS applying for an export license). Additionally EFS is an integral part of the filesystem, meaning you cannot simply copy a container file (like PGP or BestCrypt use) to another machine, and is somewhat more difficult to backup properly. EFS is also closed source, so you don't know if Microsoft has made a mistake (like they did in PPTP, LanMAN hashes, password storage in NT 4, etc.). Another MAJOR problem with EFS is that the administrator can set it so that your data can be retrieved without your permission. This is ostensibly so that if you die your files can retrieved, however if you do not control your workstation, chances are (especially in today's business environment where users are heavily monitored) that EFS is configured so files can be retrieved. The only good thing about EFS is the ease of use, and that it is free (it ships with the system). Simply right click on the file or folder you wish to encrypt, you can also create encrypted drives. Unlike PGP or BestCrypt individually encrypted files and folders can be accessed transparently by programs with no need to constantly encrypt and decrypt files. I would only use EFS as a last resort if nothing else is available (or if I wanted to be able to easily decrypt the data if I forget my password, which defeats the primary purpose). EFS can also be used from the command line with the command "cipher". EFS is also only available on NTFS drives, but if you are at all security conscious you will be using NTFS and NOT FAT or FAT32.
Another new possibility is Guardbot, which password protects www pages. Essentially there are two components, an applet that encrypts the data, using DES (56 bit keyspace), and an applet that will decrypt the data with the password you provide. The advantage of this over traditional server based methods of control (such as htaccess in Apache) is that the user manages it fully, and can protect each file individually without much setup. To fully take advantage of the keyspace available your password must contain upper and lower case letters, numbers (and punctuation marks, but this can confuse users) of around 10 letters, however since people tend to choose less then random passwords a longer password then this is advisable. This program would be useful for getting files to other people cheaply (simply sign up for some free web space, post the file up, and get the password to the other person securely).